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On the Primary Purpose of Marriageby Jennaya Arias

Marriage and
conjugal love are by their nature ordained toward the begetting and
education of children. Children are really the supreme gift of
marriage and contribute very substantially to the welfare of their
parents (Vatican II).

Traditionally
speaking, the primary purpose of marriage is the generation and
nurturing of offspring; the second purpose is the mutual help of
spouses, and the third is the remedy for concupiscence. 1 Even before
marriage was perfected by grace in the Sacrament of Matrimony, God
called His people to love and serve Him and each other in the
married state. The intimate community of life and love which
constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator
and endowed by Him with its own proper laws . . . God Himself is the
author of marriage. 2

Marriage is the
natural, indissoluble union, perfected by the Sacrament, between one
man and one woman directed towards the purpose of preserving the
human race by generating and raising children. Marriage is also
ordered to the mutual help of spouses and the remedy for sexual
desire. This definition of marriage as a natural institution can be
arrived at by common sense. Nature implants in men and women an
instinct that impels them to seek the companionship of marriage and
in this companionship, husband and wife are able to hope for help
and an easing of their physical discomforts as they get older.
3

From the
beginning of creation, God made men and women to be together in the
generative union of marriage not merely so that they could be
companions to one another, but also to populate the earth. 4 According to
the general opinion of theologians, marriage is normally defined as
the conjugal union of man and woman, contracted between two
qualified persons, which obliges them to live together throughout
life. Taking a more in-depth look at this definition and the one
given above, we can see that there are three main elements that
compose it: 1). indissolubility, 2). contractual union between ONE
man and ONE woman, and 3). ordering to the procreation and
upbringing of children, mutual help, and remedy for concupiscence.

In marriage, if
it truly is directed towards the generation and fostering of
children, it seems necessary for the contract to be indissoluble.
This can be shown through the following arguments. God created
everything for a purpose and every created thing is inclined and
directed towards its proper end. The human body is composed of parts
and each part has a function and purpose in keeping the whole
organism working properly. The feet enable the person to walk, the
eyes give sight, the tongue taste. The emission of things such as
sweat and urine help with man’s good and health. Other things, such
as semen, do not directly help with the health of the person. In
fact, semen is only useful when it is emitted in the sexual act,
which is directed towards generation. And this emission of semen
would only be useful in the process of generation if it is followed
by proper nutrition, because the produced child would not survive if
not properly nourished and nurtured. It seems, therefore, necessary
for the emission of semen to be ordered to the proper generation and
upbringing of the child. It can also be seen that it would be wrong
for the semen to be emitted under conditions where no openness to
generation is present or, if a baby were to be conceived, the proper
upbringing of the baby is impossible. 5

Some animals do
not remain together after the act of generation if the female is to
care for the babies herself, while in other species the male animals
help raise the offspring until they are able to live independently.
For example, lions take care of their young well after the act of
generation has taken place. The male lions provide food for their
families as well as protect them from predators and any danger until
the cubs are able to take care of themselves. God has provided a
natural tendency and desire for certain animals to remain with their
families and humans are such animals. Since taking care of a human
baby is much more complex than taking care of a wild animal, it is
necessary for the well-being and proper upbringing of the child to
have both parents present and to help with the numerous
responsibilities and demands of everyday life. 6

Not only should
marriage be indissoluble because of the children that may be
involved but also, as St. Thomas says, because of the mutual help
and companionship between the spouses. In other words, marriage
should be indissoluble not only because the upbringing and education
of the child requires it but also because of the special and
intimate friendship that exists between the husband and wife.

Of the three
types of friendship, namely the friendships of utility, pleasure,
and honour, it is the friendship of honour that seems to exist
between husband and wife. Those who love for the sake of utility
love for the sake of what is useful for themselves. Once the utility
is gone or the person no longer needs the other, the friendship
vanishes. Those who love for the sake of pleasure do so for the sake
of what is pleasurable to themselves and in so far as their friend
is pleasant. Friendship of honour desires the good for the other
person and is in accordance with virtue. It desires the well-being
of the other’s body and belongings, whether they be children,
possessions, as well as the proper ordering of other’s soul towards
virtue and goodness. Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who
are good, and alike in virtue; for these wish well alike to each
other qua good, and they are good in themselves. 7 In addition,
the friendship of honour includes all of the good points of the
friendships of utility and pleasure. The stronger the desire for
another’s good, the more binding, unitive, and lasting will the
friendship be. This type of friendship is rare and infrequent
because such a friendship requires a lot of time and familiarity.
Aristotle says that men cannot know each other until they have eaten
salt together; nor can they admit each other to friendship or be
friends till each has been found lovable and been trusted by each.
8

Men and women
are by nature inclined to come together in marriage, even before
they come together in cities, not only for the sake of reproduction
but also for the necessary purposes of life. The man must provide
for his wife and children by working while the woman raises the
children in the home and provides a safe and welcome haven for her
husband to return to at the end of the day. From experience, the
friendship that exists between husband and wife is the strongest
because not only are they bound together by their children but also
because they know each other better than any other person since they
build their lives around one another and their family and are mutual
companions and helpmates. 9

Having laid out
briefly two reasons why marriage need be indissoluble, let us look a
bit more deeply at each. First, if marriage were dissoluble, then
the friendship between man and wife would be weak and superficial.
However, this is contrary to experience. Thus, the fact that good
marriages are stable and strong is a sign that the bond of marriage
is an indissoluble one. It is necessary, moreover, for marriage to
be indissoluble because indissolubility is conducive to greater
respect, charity, and overall more virtuous behavior between the
spouses, all of which qualities are necessary for the proper raising
and education of offspring and for the mutual help between spouses.
It is also very important for parents to remain together not only
for the sake of each other but for the sake of their children, as
can be seen from experience. Children are able to develop a bond
between their siblings and parents that normally would not be able
to exist if marriage were dissoluble. 10

Having an
indissoluble union helps to make the love of one spouse towards the
other more faithful and the care for the household possessions more
diligent since the spouses realize that they own their goods
for the remainder of their lives, not only until their children grow
up. Charity would rule chiefly in the household because neither of
the spouses would have to worry about who will get what property and
goods after the children grow up and, in general, what each person
will do. As St. Thomas says, “ The greater the friendship is, the
more solid and long-lasting it will be. Now, there seems to be the
greatest friendship between husband and wife, for they are united
not only in the act of fleshly union, which produces a certain
gentle association even among beasts, but also in the partnership of
the whole range of domestic activity.” 11

The question
might arise as to why should spouses remain with one another until
death, not just until the children have grown up and moved away. It
would seem that once husband and wife have successfully raised their
offspring, their mission, so to speak, is complete. They should be
free to leave one another and begin new lives alone. St. Thomas
answers this objection by merely saying that it is necessary
for the spouses to remain with each other not only until the kids
have grown up but until one of the spouses dies. Their friendship
has become so intensely profound after having raised the children
together and in general through just living with one another for
such a long period of time that it would be very difficult to
separate and start new lives away from each other. 12

It is also not
beneficial to the good of the family, when raising the children and
trying to live a virtuous life, that the spouses split up after the
children are grown. Both spouses would not be able to give
themselves in their entirety to each other and the family if they
are constantly worrying about what is to become of them after the
children are all grown. They would be worrying about who will get
which goods, where to go, what to do, and for the woman, especially,
who is not as young and desirable by men as she once was. Another
reason why spouses should remain with one another until one of them
dies is because their children, grandchildren, etc. . . . will need
their advice, the fruit of experience and age, and even perhaps
financial assistance.

In addition to
being indissoluble, a proper marriage can only be between one
man and one woman. It can be seen in Nature how it is
ingrained within the minds of animals which participate in sexual
generation not to allow any sort of promiscuity within their
species. Therefore, many males will fight off others who try to
impose themselves on their female partner. Similarly with humans,
men should not have more than one wife and wives should not have
multiple husbands. Aristotle says that “one cannot be a friend to
many people in the sense of having friendship of the perfect type
with them . . .” 13

Men, by nature,
desire to know who their children are. “The friendship of kinsmen
itself, while it seems to be of many kinds, appears to depend in
every case on parental friendship; for parents love their children
as being a part of themselves, while children their parents as being
born of them.” 14
If, however, a woman is to have multiple husbands, not only will she
be not able to have the perfect friendship that can and should exist
between spouses, but she will also be denying her husbands and
children of the right given to them by nature to know one another as
begetter and begotten. Since, also, each spouse “both loves what is
good for himself, and makes an equal return in goodwill and in
pleasantness; for friendship is said to be equality” 15, it would be
wrong for husbands to have several wives, just as it is wrong for
wives to have several husbands. The friendship existing between the
multiple wives and the husband would not be free but somewhat like
that which exists between slaves and their common master. The wives
would be constantly but futilely trying to achieve a perfect
friendship with their husband, which they desire by nature, but due
to the plurality of them, this natural desire would remain
frustrated. 16

So far, from
what has been seen above, we can conclude that marriage is an
indissoluble union between one man and one woman directed towards
the procreation and raising of children and mutual help. In addition
to this, though, there seems to be a third purpose to marriage. For
we can see from experience that there are some sorts of sexual
desires that are natural to mankind. These sexual desires can very
easily go astray and if not kept under control they can lead to
fornication, adultery, and other evils. If, however, these desires
are kept within the boundaries of marriage, they can be licitly and
properly satisfied, all the while remaining open to the first two
purposes of marriage. The sexual desires of men are the same desires
that lead to the conjugal act, which itself naturally leads to the
emission of semen and the generation of offspring.

It seems,
therefore, that the sexual desires of men and women should be
restrained and suppressed until the proper conditions have been
established to allow men and women to accept the consequences of
their actions. When they are eventually prepared to act virtuously
upon their sexual desires, it should be in an indissoluble
relationship between one man and one woman. Only in the proper
context of marriage can both parties understand the great
responsibility that they are taking on and meet it head on. It is a
relief for spouses to know that they have the lasting friendship and
support of the other to raise the children and help them in the
daily and practical tasks that life demands of them.

Of the three
purposes to marriage, namely procreation and raising offspring,
mutual help of the spouses, and the remedy for concupiscence or the
sexual urge, the primary purpose must be generation of children and
the proper upbringing of them. Mutual help, although important in
marriage, follows from procreation and is secondary to it. This is
because the spouses need the constant support of each other while
raising children to be virtuous people, as well as just meeting the
material needs of daily life. Remedy for concupiscence, then, takes
third place. If two people enter marriage with mutual help or the
remedy of concupiscence as their primary purpose, many problems such
as adultery may easily result.

This essential
order of the purposes of marriage may be understood by looking at
which of them is most fundamental and basic according to the
precepts of Natural Law. 17
All substances, both animate and inanimate, have the natural
inclination for self preservation.

Only living
substances qua living substances especially animals have an
inclination for species preservation. We can look at irrational
animals, namely beasts, and see that the same inclination to the
preservation of their own being still exists. In addition,
irrational animals come together for the sole purpose of procreation
and continuing to propagate their species. As was said earlier on,
some animals remain with their offspring and provide food and
shelter for them until they are able to survive on their own.
Humans, being animals, also have this inclination to come together
to preserve the human race, but being rational, also are inclined to
educate and supply a proper upbringing to their children and nourish
their bodies and their minds.
18

Thus it seems
quite fundamental to the natural precepts that the inclination of
preservation of species is most intrinsic to all animate things and
more so to humans. There exists in humans not only the inclination
to preserve and procreate, but men are also inclined to know their
offspring and nourish and educate their bodies and minds.

Mutual help
between spouses not only includes the upbringing of offspring and
education of their minds but also the constant, lifelong support of
one another. Mutual help belongs strictly to humans, since men
desire friendship and companionship, not only for procreation but
also for help and support, and taking care of the practical
considerations of daily life. Although some beasts remain with their
offspring until they are able to live independently, the adults will
not necessarily remain with each other after the birth of their
children. In fact, this is very rare among irrational animals
because friendships cannot exist between them and besides caring for
their offspring, there is no reason why they should remain together.

As was discussed
earlier, friendship between spouses can be and ought to be the most
perfect since not only are they joined together in the physical
union of procreation but also they know each other better than any
other human person since they live together within the boundaries of
marriage. The children that they have produced and whom they are
striving everyday to raise correctly and to develop in mind and body
are an inseparable bond that unites the spouses together for the
rest of their lives, only to be separated by death.

Now, the order
of the precepts of the Natural Law is according to the order of
natural inclinations. So, the procreation and upbringing of
offspring is the most fundamental purpose of marriage, because it is
common to all animals, irrational and rational; mutual help is
secondary to this, since it is only common to rational animals,
namely men. All animals come together to generate and preserve their
species but only men and women can provide the support needed to
raise children and help one another in the arduous tasks in everyday
life.

The third and
final purpose of marriage, namely the remedy of the sexual urge,
pertains to the disordered soul of man, after the Fall of Adam and
Eve. It is the beastly aspect of our nature that makes us lust and
desire sexual pleasure in abstraction from the begetting of
children. It is absolutely necessary that these urges be suppressed
and restrained until we are morally able to fulfill them. 19

The remedy of
concupiscence should properly be the third purpose of marriage, not
the main focus of the sexual act; if it were, it could easily lead
to fornication and adultery. When kept within marriage, however,
spouses engage in the sexual act not to solely produce offspring,
although that is or at least should be the main reason for sexual
union, but also to express their mutual love and to satisfy the sex
urges that are common to mankind since the fall of Adam and Eve.
When the satisfaction of the sexual urge becomes the primary purpose
for spouses and not generation and the upbringing of offspring, they
may be tempted to look elsewhere for this satisfaction, and this can
very easily lead to the betrayal of the sacredness of marriage with
adultery. It is absolutely necessary, therefore, for the remedy of
concupiscence not to be the primary motive of engaging in the sexual
act. Of the natural inclinations with which I am concerned, the
remedy of concupiscence is the least fundamental and therefore the
least basic of the three purposes of marriage.

A Sacrament is a
sensible sign, instituted by Jesus Christ, by which invisible grace
and inward sanctification are communicated to the soul. The
essential elements of a sacrament of the New Law are institution by
Christ the God-man during His visible stay on earth, and a sensibly
perceptible rite that actually confers the supernatural grace it
symbolizes. 20
As can be seen by this definition, three elements are needed in
order to make an institution a Sacrament: a sensible sign,
institution by Jesus Christ, and grace conferred upon the soul or
souls through that sign. It will now be shown that since grace
builds upon nature 21,
the naturally indissoluble contract between one man and one woman
for the purpose of procreation, which contract is marriage, was
raised and perfected to the Divine and Sacramental level of Holy
Matrimony by Christ during His lifetime.

Grace is the
gift from God that elevates us to the Supernatural order of being
and leads us to the God. Fr. Hardon says that grace is the
supernatural gift that God gives to us of His own benevolence and
which is necessary for rational creatures in order to attain eternal
salvation. The gifts of grace, namely sanctifying grace, the infused
virtues, the gifts of the Holy Ghost, and actual grace, surpass the
being, powers, and claims of created nature. 22

Grace, as a
created participation in the Divine Life, cannot exist by itself,
independent of a subject and therefore must exist in something else.
Grace is a quality because it makes a man to be holy and disposes
him to know, love, and serve God. From this it is evident that grace
requires nature to receive it and operate with it. Now, the
supernatural does not merely add to our nature; it fills our being
and natural powers, perfecting them in the created order and
elevating them to the supernatural level and to the Divine order of
being. An illustration of how grace sanctifies and permeates the
entire natural substance can be seen in the way in which heat
permeates a piece of iron and causes it to glow with heat. The heat
symbolizes grace and the iron is the natural substance, which is
being changed by grace. When grace is infused within the substance,
the substance glows brightly and burns with the intensity of the
grace.

When a couple
worthily receives the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, they are granted
sanctifying grace with the pledge for actual graces which will give
the couple supernatural strength to fulfill the daily duties of
their new life. In marriage, this grace is extremely important in
order for the couple to live not only according to the natural
virtues but also to attain eternal beatitude in Heaven. The
Sacrament of Holy Matrimony not only denotes a sanctifying remedy
against sin but aids the couple in their daily duties, which are so
demanding that without the help of God’s grace, would be almost
impossible to carry out. Spouses are required to help not only each
other strive for perfection in virtue and goodness but also to help,
to the best of their ability, to bring the souls that God has
entrusted them with to Heaven. Man and wife must be the examples of
upright, just, and virtuous men and women for their children to look
up to in the home. They must make their home a place of love,
prayer, support, and stability, one where the children are aware
that their parents love God, each other, and them so much that they
are willing to make sacrifices and live a Christian life on a daily
basis.

In marriage,
Christ perfected the natural bond between man and wife by elevating
it to a Sacramental contract that confers sanctifying grace upon the
spouses. 23
Christ emphasizes the importance of an indissoluble union and bond
between the spouses and makes it very clear that those who have
worthily entered into Holy Matrimony are not ever to leave their
spouse for any reason. He reinforces the sanctity of marriage
and lets it be known that spouses are to remain with one another in
the bond of Holy Matrimony. Those who have entered into the
Sacrament of Holy Matrimony not only hand over to their spouses the
rights over their bodies but also promise to help their spouses
attain Heaven. This is a life-long commitment on the part of the
spouses that requires a plethora of patience, perseverance,
sacrifice, and, above all, supernatural charity. Marriage not only
is the union of man and woman in flesh but also the giving of the
one to the other in their entirety, that is, in perfect friendship,
for the rest of their lives, and if God so wills, to raise children
according to God’s Holy Law.

Christ, while on
earth, elevated natural marriage to the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony.
He changed the way Moses and the people of the Old Testament
regarded marriage and instituted it as a Holy Sacrament. 24 Christ made
the relationships between husbands, wives, and children in marriage
more perfectly image the love existing between the persons of the
Blessed Trinity. As St. Paul said in Ephesians 5:22, wives should be
subject to their husbands as to the Lord. Just as Christ is Head of
His Church, so should the husband be the head of the wife and
family. The husband is to love his wife as Christ loves His Church
and he must nourish and cherish his wife as his own flesh, just as
Christ nourishes and cherishes the Church. There are two elements
necessary for the sensible sign of marriage: the matter and the
form. The matter of a Sacrament is either a physical substance (e.g.
oil or water) or an action perceptible to the senses. Now obviously
there is no physical substance which constitutes the matter in the
Sacrament of Holy Matrimony as there is in Baptism or Extreme
Unction. Nonetheless, there is an action perceptible to the senses,
namely, the consent of the man and woman to be married. When they
come to the Altar freely and express their intentions of giving
themselves wholly and entirely to one another in Holy Matrimony,
this is sufficient for the matter of the Sacrament. 25

The form of Holy
Matrimony follows upon the matter of the Sacrament. By actually
accepting each other as husband and wife, the spouses supply the
form of the Sacrament. The form of Holy Matrimony consists in the
words whereby the marriage consent is expressed. 26 When the man
and woman, who are to be married, therefore, express the marriage
vows by words or signs, they are supplying the form of the
Sacrament. The couples themselves are the proximate agents of the
Sacrament. By freely and knowingly agreeing to the marriage
contract, namely the giving to one another the right to satisfy the
natural inclinations, they act as the proximate efficient cause of
the Sacrament and make the receiving of the Sacrament possible.
27 A few
objections have been raised concerning marriage as a Sacrament and
having its primary purpose of procreation. The first objection
concerns the purposes of marriage and the necessity of the order
being as stated. It would seem that if procreation and the education
of children is first and must always be the primary purpose of
marriage, that those couples who are unable to have children
naturally should not get married. The same goes for elderly people
who have passed the childbearing years for it would seem that it is
no longer necessary for them to remain together in marriage.

This objection
can be easily refuted, however, because the couple who either cannot
have children naturally whether due to infertility or old age should
be open to children and be willing to accept them if it be God’s
Holy Will. Therefore they are not disregarding the primary purpose
of marriage. Each and every marriage, whether fertile, infertile, or
barren, should consider the procreation and upbringing of children
superior to the other two purposes, for this is what God intended
from the beginning of creation. Just as the eye is formed and
destined for sight, there are some unusual cases where the eye may
be struck by blindness, either from interior or exterior causes,
thus hindering its proper functions. The same holds true for
marriage. Every marriage has as its primary end the procreation of
new life, and if there are some marriages that cannot bring children
into this world due to some natural cause, that does not alter what
marriage is naturally and divinely ordered to.

This can be more
properly seen by looking at what the marriage act is primarily
ordered to. St. Thomas says that the marriage act is always
meritorious if the couple desires to be with one another as husband
and wife and both are in the state of grace. 28 They must
also be open to the possibility of children, although this does not
necessarily need to be the foremost thought on their minds. If one
of the parties is merely desiring to be with his or her spouse out
of concupiscence but yet would not ever go to another person who is
not their spouse, he or she would be guilty of a venial sin. If one
of the parties is willing to seek a remedy for his concupiscence
from another not his spouse, he is guilty of a mortal sin. If
nature is guided by reason, the act will be virtuous and if it is
not, the marriage act will not be virtuous but in fact, an act of
lust. 29

In addition, as
has been shown previously in this essay, it is necessary to the
nature of marriage that it be indissoluble until one of the spouses
dies. Christ made it very clear while on earth that if a husband
leaves his wife and goes to another woman, he is guilty of adultery
and the same applies to the wife. Only if the spouse is unchaste can
the other leave him or her but under no circumstances, while both of
the spouses are alive, is either to remarry. “But I say to you, that
whosoever shall put away is wife, excepting for the cause of
fornication, maketh her to commit adultery: and he that shall marry
her that is put away, committeth adultery.” 30 It is clear,
therefore that husband and wife are to remain with one another until
death do them part, even after the children are grown up and living
on their own. A spouse’s obligation, then, is to help and support
one another in their duties and tasks of everyday life.

One might also
object that marriage is not just for the procreation of children
because when Christ instituted it as a Sacrament, He instructed
husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the Church. Since this
is the case, it would seem, therefore, that procreation and the
education of children should not be the primary purpose of marriage.
Rather, the love between spouses, which is not only manifest through
the sexual act, should be the most important purpose of marriage.

There is some
truth in this objection and it can be answered in this way. Christ
did intend to restore marriage from its corrupted nature back
to the way that God intended in the Garden of Eden. He tells His
followers that the only reason God allowed divorce and multiple
wives in the Old Testament was due to the hardness of their hearts.
“They said to Him: ‘Why then did Moses command to give a bill of
divorce, and to put away?’ He saith to them: “Because Moses by
reason of the hardness of your heart permitted you to put away your
wives: but from the beginning it was not so.’” 31 Like many of
the popes, Pope Pius XII addressed the people of every nation
regarding the necessity for procreation and the upbringing of
children to be first and primary in every marriage. 32

The final
objection has to do with the necessity of the Sacrament of
Holy Matrimony for it seems that the natural marriage alone is
sufficient for salvation. On the contrary, there are two types of
necessity of end. The first type of necessity obtains when without a
given means, the end cannot possibly be attained. An example of this
simple necessity of end is food which is necessary for human life.
Secondly, a thing is called necessary if it is that which most
fittingly serves as a means to the end. 33 One can take
a trip from California to Indiana on foot but it is more fitting to
go by plane because it is more time efficient. The plane is not
simply necessary for attaining the end but it is the most becoming
way of attaining the end. It is in this way that Matrimony is
necessary. It not only serves as a remedy against concupiscence for
individuals, but it multiplies members of the Church and provides
the graces needed to attain Eternal Salvation.

Thus it has been
shown that of the three purposes of marriage, procreation and the
education of children is the most primary and fundamental, followed
by mutual help and support of the spouses, and finally the remedy
for concupiscence. Christ, during His time here on earth, elevated
marriage from merely a natural institution ordered to the
procreation of children to the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, thus
making the relationship between man and wife so intimate and special
as it images the relationships between the Persons of the Blessed
Trinity. Holy Matrimony serves also as a source of abundant and
necessary grace to husbands and wives who participate in this great
and wondrous Sacrament.

Jennaya Arias lives in
Houston with her husband, David, and son, Joseph.

End Notes
1 Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (Rockford, IL:
Tan Books, 1974), p. 462. Here Ott references the 1944 decision of
the Holy Office which clearly reaffirmed that the primary purpose of
marriage is the procreation and upbringing of children. Even though
many (if not all) of the documents of the Magisterium on this topic
since Vatican II have not explicitily organized the ends of marriage
in terms of primary and secondary, nonetheless, none of these
documents teach anything which cannot be interpreted in terms of the
1944 decision of the Holy Office. That in the Pope’s mind, at least,
no change has been made on this matter of Church teaching, can be
seen in the Holy Father’s work, Love and Responsibility,
trans. H. T. Willetts (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1981), pp. 66-69.
Therein, the Holy Father lays out, in no equivocal terms, the
traditional teaching of the Church on this matter both as unchanged
and as unchangeable. Although this work is non-magisterial in
character, it is nonetheless quite significant insofar as it
expresses the mind of the Holy Father. In the same section of the
work, the Pope also makes the important point that the second end of
marriage, namely, “mutual help,” should not be translated as “mutual
love,” as it sometimes has been. This would be a mistake since it
would seem to limit love between spouses to the second end of
marriage, as if it were somehow separable from the first and third
ends. Rather, the Holy Father teaches that love must be the
indispensable moral environment in which the three ends of marriage
are pursued. This present essay should be read as in complete
agreement with what the Holy Father says on these matters.
2 Gaudium et Spes, #48.
3 Catechism of the Council of Trent (Rockford, IL: Tan Books,
1982), 344.
4 Genesis 1:18, 21-24, 27-28
5 St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles (Indiana:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), Bk.3 Pt.2 Chap. 122, #6
6 Ibid., Chap. 122, #6
7 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics., 1156b 6-9
8 Ibid., 1157b 25-30
9 Ibid., 1162a 16-29
10 Ibid., 1162a 11-15
11 Summa contra Gentiles, Bk.3 Pt. 2 Chap.123, #6
12 Ibid., Ch. 123 #6
13 Nicomachean Ethics 1158a 10-12
14 Ibid., 1161b 16-19
15 Ibid., 1157b 35-37
16 St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica (Westminster, MD:
Christian Classics, 1981), Supplement Q.65 A.1
17 Ibid., Pt.1 Q.94 A.2
18 Ibid., Pt. 1 Q.94 A.2
19 1 Corinthians 7:1-3, 8-10
20 Fr. John Hardon, Modern Catholic Dictionary (New York:
Doubleday, 1980), p. 477
21 Summa Theologica, Pt. 1 Q. 1 A. 8 ad. 2
22 Modern Catholic Dictionary, p. 236
23 Summa Theologica, Supplement Q.42 A.3
24 Mark 10:2-9
25 Summa Theologica, Supplement Q.42 A.1 ad. 2
26 Ibid., Q.42 A.1 ad. 1
27 Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, p. 467.
28 Summa Theologica, Supplement Q.41 A.4 Corpus
29 Ibid., Q.41 A.4 Corpus
30 Matthew 5:32
31 Matthew 19:7-8
32 Pope Pius XII, Address to Midwives on October 29, 1951:
Acta Apostolici Sedis 43 (1951) 843.
33 Summa Theologica, Pt. 3 Q. 65 A. 4 Corpus

"Amen,
amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his
blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my
blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is
true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
remains in me and I in him."
John
6:53-56

Jesus Gave Us The Eucharist For All Time The Night
Before He Died

"While they were eating,
Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and giving it to his disciples
said, "Take and eat; this is my body." Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave
it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the
covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins. "
Matthew 26:26-28

Today Some Cannot Accept The Gift Just As
It Was In The Time Of Jesus

"'But
there are some of you who do not believe.' Jesus knew from the beginning the
ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him. And he said, 'For
this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him
by my Father.' As a result of this, many (of) his disciples returned to their
former way of life and no longer accompanied him. Jesus then said to the Twelve,
'Do you also want to leave?' Simon Peter answered him, 'Master, to whom shall we
go? You have the words of eternal life.'"John
6:64-68

Jesus Explained That Eternal Life
Is Gained Through The Spirit - Not Through The Flesh

Jesus' Flesh And Blood Are Of
Divine Nature (Spirit) And Not Of This World (Flesh)

"It
is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have
spoken to you are spirit and life."
John
6:64-68

It's NOT
Just Bread And Wine - It's NOT Just Crackers And Grape Juice

Jesus
Gave Us The Eucharist To Nourish Us Until He Returns

Come Home To HIS
Church And Accept HIS Holy Flesh And Blood

"Whoever
listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever
rejects me rejects the one who sent me."
Luke 10:16